Review Gearstats in WvW too

I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

Isn't that a problem with balance rather than gear stats? If no one is able to play condi without OP stats why are there viable PvP condi builds?

Dire/Trailblazer is broken. As condi, you basically just need condi damage to do damage, for power you need power/precision/ferocity to deal significant damages. 1 stat vs 3 stat isn't exactly balanced, also because as dire/trailblazer, you are also "tank". Dire was always the gear stat for cheesing anyway.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

Isn't that a problem with balance rather than gear stats? If no one can play condi without OP stats why are there viable PvP condi builds?

The stats aren't OP. It's the same number of stats as power.

There are viable condi builds because they exploit evasion to be really annoying and un-hittable (eg. roaming condi mirage, roaming pvp-style condi thief).

No other condi builds are viable (eg. condi ranger, burn guard, condi revenant, condi engi, condi warrior) because they rely on stacking a low number of conditions and waiting for them to tick, but without the evade cheese of Mirage and Thief. Scourge kind of works because it puts out so much aoe pressure and corrupt, but is vulnerable to focus and is usually the first target. It's only really viable in organized zergs where they can coordinate bombs.

No condi builds except scourge are viable in zergs or large fights due to the amount of cleanse and resistance that is constantly being passed around. Condi builds generally need to be in close range and it's just not worth the risk when every time you land your burst, it'll be instantly cleansed by a support FB and there's nothing you can do about it.

Options:

give other condi builds cheesy evasion like mirage/thief .. not fun, do not want.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

Isn't that a problem with balance rather than gear stats? If no one can play condi without OP stats why are there viable PvP condi builds?

The stats aren't OP. It's the same number of stats as power.

There are viable condi builds because they exploit evasion to be really annoying and un-hittable (eg. roaming condi mirage, roaming pvp-style condi thief).

No other condi builds are viable (eg. condi ranger, burn guard, condi revenant, condi engi, condi warrior) because they rely on stacking a low number of conditions and waiting for them to tick, but without the evade cheese of Mirage and Thief. Scourge kind of works because it puts out so much aoe pressure and corrupt, but is vulnerable to focus and is usually the first target. It's only really viable in organized zergs where they can coordinate bombs.

No condi builds except scourge are viable in zergs or large fights due to the amount of cleanse and resistance that is constantly being passed around. Condi builds generally need to be in close range and it's just not worth the risk when every time you land your burst, it'll be instantly cleansed by a support FB and there's nothing you can do about it.

Options:

give other condi builds cheesy evasion like mirage/thief .. not fun, do not want.

reduce cleanse across all classes.. probably not going to be popular

give condi builds more defense through stats (eg. dire/trailblazer)

I personally would vote for option number 2: heavily reduce cleanse across all classes. Make condi require 3 stats to put out good damage like power (eg. make condi builds apply their damage on crit procs, so you need condi/precision/expertise gear). That would be way more balanced, and I wouldn't have to out-play my opponent 4 times before they die, compared to out-playing them 1 time on power.

Looking at rewards in a game mode has largely fallen previously on the per-gamemode team.
We'll be more able to review such things as a whole and make sure they don't adversely affect other game modes at the same time.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:
Looking at rewards in a game mode has largely fallen previously on the per-gamemode team.
We'll be more able to review such things as a whole and make sure they don't adversely affect other game modes at the same time.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:
Looking at rewards in a game mode has largely fallen previously on the per-gamemode team.
We'll be more able to review such things as a whole and make sure they don't adversely affect other game modes at the same time.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

Isn't that a problem with balance rather than gear stats? If no one can play condi without OP stats why are there viable PvP condi builds?

The stats aren't OP. It's the same number of stats as power.

There are viable condi builds because they exploit evasion to be really annoying and un-hittable (eg. roaming condi mirage, roaming pvp-style condi thief).

No other condi builds are viable (eg. condi ranger, burn guard, condi revenant, condi engi, condi warrior) because they rely on stacking a low number of conditions and waiting for them to tick, but without the evade cheese of Mirage and Thief. Scourge kind of works because it puts out so much aoe pressure and corrupt, but is vulnerable to focus and is usually the first target. It's only really viable in organized zergs where they can coordinate bombs.

No condi builds except scourge are viable in zergs or large fights due to the amount of cleanse and resistance that is constantly being passed around. Condi builds generally need to be in close range and it's just not worth the risk when every time you land your burst, it'll be instantly cleansed by a support FB and there's nothing you can do about it.

Options:

give other condi builds cheesy evasion like mirage/thief .. not fun, do not want.

reduce cleanse across all classes.. probably not going to be popular

give condi builds more defense through stats (eg. dire/trailblazer)

The stats are OP. Having full defensive stats without sacrificing any offensive is problematic. It means full condi DPS builds are in fact very tanky.

In large scale guard does have viable burn builds. If melee-pushing was a thing, rev would also have viable condi builds. Minstrel and nomad are also pretty broken and should probably be removed. And many of the sigils and runes in hte game, while we're at it.

Condi and cleanse are a relatively simple in-out system where damage (or lack thereof) relies very heavily on one outpacing the other. As long as you can apply as much condies as they can cleanse, they take next to no damage. As soon as you apply MORE condi than they can cleanse, you start to apply damage very quickly.

As powercreep increases both the amount of cleanse and the amount of condi application; this balance constantly becomes wonkier and feels more unfair. You can apply 500k condi damage to my FB and he'll literally ignore it as long as he has sufficient cleanse and resistance. And the moment he runs out, he's dead within seconds.

That's also why condi is relevant in condi setups and meta's. Either you burst or overwhelm your enemy with conditions to surpass (or outpace) their cleanses; or you just use corrupts and condi as soft-CC / random pressure and spike with power. If everyone is spamming condi cleanse for days because scourges are corrupting them left right and center; then burn guard will get a lot more ticks. It does even MORE damage than scourge. It's not OP - it needs the scourges to ensure their condies to tick longer and more often. Nerf the scourge and its condi application and the core guard falls heavily.

Maybe some cleanse needs nerfing, but buffing condi application (and their counters in reply to it) is very very unhealthy in the long term.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

You are right. The condi-system wasn't that well thought out since they started working on this game. The problem with changing the whole system is that it would require some serious effort and I just don't see that happening ever. Nerfing a few gear-stats that are not available in PvP for a good reason on the other hand isn't that unrealistic.

Hmm. I don't understand the OP's initial grievance. In WvW you just wear your PVE gear, so I don't understand how OP can ask for changes to Trailblazer and Celestial stats in WvW without also affecting those stats in PVE. Surely no one would consider changing a PVE stat just to make it mesh better in WvW...

Just to note: the tanky gear is not much defense. It used to be back when everything did much less damage, but now, it buys you an extra second, maybe. The difference between my Viper and Dire gear is an extra 1-2 soulbeast autoattacks. In full Dire, I'm still taking 2.5k per hit of unblocakble+quickness rapid fire and 6k+ Long Range Shots.

However, unlike with Berserker gear, I can't kill my opponent quickly, and I need to get in close range to do it, and I need to land my burst multiple times - at least twice on almost all builds, usually 4-5 times. Sometimes 8-10 times on builds with lots of cleanse. Against some support builds, I literally can do no damage no matter how many times I land my skills. An opposing power build just needs to land their combo once.

Suppose we remove tanky stats. Why would anyone ever risk using damage over time if power is more effective and not more risky?

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

Really? because IMO Dire/Trailblazer is necessary for some builds. Look, if I'm roaming on my condi engi and I land all my burst, my opponent will cleanse it again and again, so I end up having to get in close range and combo them 3-4 times on average, and THEN once they can't cleanse any more, I have to wait a long time for the condi to actually tick and kill them. If I'm playing power, I hit them once and they're dead instantly. If it takes 3 seconds to kill someone on power and 30+ seconds to kill someone on condi, assuming you completely outplay them, condi needs a little extra vitality/toughness.

At least on engi, condi is not easier to apply than power damage. In fact, it's harder - closer range, long cooldowns, easy to miss.

Isn't that a problem with balance rather than gear stats? If no one can play condi without OP stats why are there viable PvP condi builds?

The stats aren't OP. It's the same number of stats as power.

There are viable condi builds because they exploit evasion to be really annoying and un-hittable (eg. roaming condi mirage, roaming pvp-style condi thief).

No other condi builds are viable (eg. condi ranger, burn guard, condi revenant, condi engi, condi warrior) because they rely on stacking a low number of conditions and waiting for them to tick, but without the evade cheese of Mirage and Thief. Scourge kind of works because it puts out so much aoe pressure and corrupt, but is vulnerable to focus and is usually the first target. It's only really viable in organized zergs where they can coordinate bombs.

No condi builds except scourge are viable in zergs or large fights due to the amount of cleanse and resistance that is constantly being passed around. Condi builds generally need to be in close range and it's just not worth the risk when every time you land your burst, it'll be instantly cleansed by a support FB and there's nothing you can do about it.

Options:

give other condi builds cheesy evasion like mirage/thief .. not fun, do not want.

reduce cleanse across all classes.. probably not going to be popular

give condi builds more defense through stats (eg. dire/trailblazer)

The stats are OP. Having full defensive stats without sacrificing any offensive is problematic. It means full condi DPS builds are in fact very tanky.

Okay, sure. Suppose we make condi builds require full offensive stats in order to do the same damage. Now why would anyone risk playing condi if they're facing 2 disadvantages.

even if they land their condi, power builds can turn around and 1-shot them while they wait for it to tick

their damage can be frequently nullified by resistance or cleanse

Condi and cleanse are a relatively simple in-out system where damage (or lack thereof) relies very heavily on one outpacing the other. As long as you can apply as much condies as they can cleanse, they take next to no damage. As soon as you apply MORE condi than they can cleanse, you start to apply damage very quickly.

Sort of. It's not linear though. If you are only applying a single condition, like condi ranger with bleed, it takes relatively little cleanse in order to completely ignore their damage. If you are applying many conditions at once, like thief or scourge, it takes way more cleanse to fight through all the cover conditions before you get to the damage.

On top of this, there's this mechanic where the last condition applied is cleansed first, so it's actually in the condition player's interest to NOT apply damaging conditions once they've stacked a few and instead only focus on cover and hope no one else around them hits the target with the same damaging condi. It's .. a really weird system.

But it's not "OP" in PvE.. I mean, it's not OP in WvW either, but that's besides the point. How would you even remove that stat set? Convert every existing Trailblazer piece to something else? Even if the game engine did support it, it'd hardly be fair.

It has been known for a long time that conditions are favored to win the longer a fight goes on. That's the whole point of a "damage over time" mechanic like conditions. I see no issue with stats on condition gear that increase the length of time of a fight because conditions were never intended to spike damage and kill within the first minute or two. Lengthening the time of the fight is the only defense condition builds are supposed to have against burst builds. The only issue becomes ensuring that conditions remain "damage over time" and the skills/traits that apply them are properly tuned so they don't spike damage.

I see no issue with stats on condition gear that increase the length of time of a fight

Exactly. If you're geared to do damage over time, then it's fair for that gear to also help you live through the duration of that time. I don't make sense to be squishy and dead on the ground while your conditions are still at work - that's not a sensible playstyle to intentionally design around.

I run ascended Trailblazers in WvW with my condition Ranger and I regularly get powered down by glass cannons. If anything, the balance is tipped in the favor of power builds, because PVE conditions can't stand up to WvW zergs where condition cleanse is nearly constant. shrug I'd like to see conditions be more powerful in WvW, or at least make condition cleansing less effective.

@ClaraFee.2579 said:
I'd like to see conditions be more powerful in WvW, or at least make condition cleansing less effective.

It would probably be a pain to implement and balance, but it would be nice to see more skills and traits (and runes/sigils, probably) with counters to specific conditions, rather than general condition cleanse. Such that, individually, different professions would have certain baked-in weaknesses (though the right ally build could help defend against it). I mean, there would still be plenty of cleanse, but a least it would take a little more thought to get the desired effect.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

It's mitigated by cleanse and resistance.. of which there is tons out there. Ele, for example basically cleanses 1 condi every 1-2 seconds. Same with guard. Warrior/Spellbreaker can stack tons of resistance, etc.

Now, I can land a 15k melee-range rocket kick (very risky, very close range), but that damage is applied over 15s. Absolutely no opponent is going to let that damage sit around and tick for 15s. That's an eternity in PvP/WvW. Most will cleanse it within 5s. So it really does 5k damage or less.

Compare with power: There is no cleanse for a 15k shatter or a 15k deaths judgement or a 28k rapid fire, all of which are easier to land and GUARANTEE their damage and don't have to wait a quarter of a minute for it to finish ticking.

@coro.3176 said:
Just to note: the tanky gear is not much defense. It used to be back when everything did much less damage, but now, it buys you an extra second, maybe. The difference between my Viper and Dire gear is an extra 1-2 soulbeast autoattacks. In full Dire, I'm still taking 2.5k per hit of unblocakble+quickness rapid fire and 6k+ Long Range Shots.

However, unlike with Berserker gear, I can't kill my opponent quickly, and I need to get in close range to do it, and I need to land my burst multiple times - at least twice on almost all builds, usually 4-5 times. Sometimes 8-10 times on builds with lots of cleanse. Against some support builds, I literally can do no damage no matter how many times I land my skills. An opposing power build just needs to land their combo once.

Suppose we remove tanky stats. Why would anyone ever risk using damage over time if power is more effective and not more risky?

Yeah boys. You heard it here first. Tanky setups don't work and exist!

Let's do some math then. If you have no toughness - most classes have about 2k armor (1k toughness) depending on the armor weight. Lets use 2k as base armor value with base toughness (1k).

Incoming damage is = DamageConstant / ArmorValue, where DamageConstant depends on the skill, power, damage modifiers, ... from the attacker. These do NOT change.Let's keep DamageConstant on 1000 for easy calculations, because it's value is irrelevant and depending on the attacker.

If you have 1k toughness (base) then you'll get hit for 1000 / 2000 = ~500.
Imagine you have 2k toughness (+1k from gear). You'll get hit for 1000 / 3000 = ~333
Imagine you have 2.3k toughness (full trailblazer gets me there). You'll get hit for 1000/3300 = ~300

Let's add protection as an example of damage reduction modifiers, which are frequently used in WvW (food, protection uptime, traits, dwarf, ...)
So on full trailblazer, you take 60% of the damage on full viper / grieving / ...
We've ignored vitality completely.

You see that with protection and full dire, you take 40% of the damage as no toughness setups without protection. The difference between both with protection remains 60%.

But there is more, as I explained before. both condi and power is - unless you walk into a clear bomb and get one shot - an in-out system. Players heal up and avoid damage, and to make damage stick you need to outdps their sustain.

Lets say a warrior does 2k dps to you on a no toughness build, and you can heal up 1k hps through sustain. (Obviously you're dodging and stuff, hence only 2k dps hits you. Assume you don't get stunblocked and bursted down.). I understand this is heavily simplified and usually looks a lot less uneven due to burst and first burning players cooldowns, from where it quickly escalates to a winner, but for larger groups this does happen sustain based and in-out based. Even for smaller groups and solo this dictates howmuch cooldowns you need to burn, and how quickly.

On a no toughness build at 2k dps, you heal up 1k per second, about 1k dps/s sticks and you get whittled down over ~20s.
At 2k toughness (+1k from gear) you have... 1.333 k dps incoming. You still heal 1k per second. Only 333 damage per second sticks. Your survival time goes up to 60 seconds (!!!).
At 2.3k toughness, it goes up to 66 seconds.

If you add protection, you the warrior doesn't manage to pressure the condi build enough to ever kill him. He should consider running because your cooldowns and sustain is better than his pressure overall. At this point, he MUST spike you and attempt gimmick 100-0's or else you will naturally outsustain him. Power damage not stronk enough, please buff.

Same goes for condi. Condi does NOT apply any pressure until it goes past the cleanse. And when it goes past the cleanse, 10% more condi application can quickly result in 100 times more condi damage taken over time. As we constantly buff BOTH - it only makes the game more reliant on either cleansing all condi and ignoring it completely OR getting overwhelmed by so much condi you can't cleanse and dying almost immediately.

We can talk about condi being "sustained damage" but most viable condi class in HoT or PoF don't spam it as "sustained damage" as much as condi spikes either. Sure it'll take 2-3 seconds compared to 1s for mesmer / rev compressing their burst, but yeah.

All of it, the sustain, the boon spam, the corrupt spam, condi clear, condi application, resistance as a whole... Doesn't make the game better, more casual friendly and definitely doesn't make it feel more fair. Blanket nerf all of it if you want to go back to a game where more stuff works and things are "easier" to understand AND balance.

If power damage is "OP", and power damage is pretty heavily impacted by toughness ... How exactly is toughness irrelevant?

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:
Would love to see standardized gear and stats in WvW like we have in spvp.. One can dream, I guess.

Same but most players are all like "muh gear muh grind I did so others must too xoxo progression". Meanwhile I'll just kick any pve players / roamers and some new players / casuals who don't have the gear available to survive in the zerg.

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

It's mitigated by cleanse and resistance.. of which there is tons out there.

On very specific builds and classes.

Ele, for example basically cleanses 1 condi every 1-2 seconds. Same with guard. Warrior/Spellbreaker can stack tons of resistance, etc.

>
?? In most viable builds ele cleanses conditions in burst. I.E. going into water and dodging + skill usage, but that is something I mainly see tied to water attunement. Can you link the skill ele has that removes a condi every second? ( that isn't the heal as that is the most interrupted skill in this game)
For warrior/spellbreaker, it's a waiting game, and depending on the terrain, you can just kite them to death with conditions.

Now, I can land a 15k melee-range rocket kick (very risky, very close range), but that damage is applied over 15s. Absolutely no opponent is going to let that damage sit around and tick for 15s. That's an eternity in PvP/WvW. Most will cleanse it within 5s. So it really does 5k damage or less.

I assume everyone realizes that conditions are now just as bursty as direct damage.
We could use for example say condi thief. A condi thief can burst about 8+stacks of poison ( I believe it's actually 12+ I haven't toyed with it for a couple of months because it's kinda cancer) on an opponent almost instantly. No one will let that sit on them and they will attempt to cleanse...
Except with the 8+ stacks of poison you also have torment, confusion,weakness.cripple, bleeding, and immob. And the condition application is not stopping, your cleanse on most classes will remove the movement impairing conditions first, then they will remove the damaging conditions.
Or lets take condi mes.
20stacks of confusion, then torment, bleed, cripple, burning,blind, and vuln ( plus immob depending on the setup)
Or what about scourge doing the same AND THEN, denying you the resistance to deal with the burning,torment,poison,bleeding,weakness, and cripple they apply
The majority of cleanses in this game were not meant to take on burst of conditions. In fact, Burst condi shouldn't even be a thing. BUT IT IS.

So the dilemma we have now is that builds are able to spike people down with mass condition application, while also being tanky.

and this isn't even getting into the problem of reapplication frequency

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

You are right. The condi-system wasn't that well thought out since they started working on this game. The problem with changing the whole system is that it would require some serious effort and I just don't see that happening ever. Nerfing a few gear-stats that are not available in PvP for a good reason on the other hand isn't that unrealistic.

Players of the game deserve a more "serious effort" aimed at improving the quality of gameplay... And anet wants more happy customers happily buying gems, not less. All goes hand and hand right?

@beatthedown.2651 said:
I don't know if this is still on-topic, but this has been an issue since game launch. Now that this team exists I think it's about time to review Gearstats in WvW since there are quite a few pretty broken stat-combos that hurt the gamemode. An example would be the infamous Dire/Trailblazer stats, but also the straight up stat-bonus from Celestial. I know WvW isn't about perfect balance, but this does not mean there have to be unkillable builds that could put out waay too much damage.

You point to condi stats, yet you failed to recognize that the condi system we have was built primarily for pve. There are zero gear stats that provide active defense or mitigation of condition damage, like the counterpart of toughness and armor vs power damage... It’s also easy to overwhelm an player with conditions because there are limited sources of cleansing available on builds...

If you want to talk about high toughness and survivable “tank” builds, you are also neglecting to see the crazy damage numbers being pumped out by individual professions... and those damage numbers are amplified by numbers you face in wvw... What are you looking to have every fight last 5 seconds and see that as healthy?

“Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. Toughness has no effect on falling damage. Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression.”

“Direct damage. This damage is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can crit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.

Condition damage. This damage is inflicted primarily by conditions, does not crit and is not mitigated by the target's armor.”

Again, none of the gear stats you can use mitigates condition damage... So the problem isn’t condition damage gear stats like “dire” or trailblazer”... it’s the fact that there are zero gear stats that potentially reduce the amount of condition damage. Condition output vastly outweighs a characters access to cleansing. These are the problems.

It's mitigated by cleanse and resistance.. of which there is tons out there. Ele, for example basically cleanses 1 condi every 1-2 seconds. Same with guard. Warrior/Spellbreaker can stack tons of resistance, etc.

Now, I can land a 15k melee-range rocket kick (very risky, very close range), but that damage is applied over 15s. Absolutely no opponent is going to let that damage sit around and tick for 15s. That's an eternity in PvP/WvW. Most will cleanse it within 5s. So it really does 5k damage or less.

Compare with power: There is no cleanse for a 15k shatter or a 15k deaths judgement or a 28k rapid fire, all of which are easier to land and GUARANTEE their damage and don't have to wait a quarter of a minute for it to finish ticking.

I am fully aware of the condi system, and the problems in wvw and spvp. This is about nerfing gear to address issues, but nerfing gear will not address issues...

It feels like the Great Condi Nerf Patch (Dec 2017) fixed a lot of the problem with condi being burst damage, which is fine, but it did not also reduce cleanse on all classes. The result was a massive nerf to all condi builds that cannot consistently reapply conditions. If condi stacks are halved, but cleanse remains the same, the result is a 50% nerf..

Was this intended? Are there any plans for non-spammy condition builds to be viable again (eg. condi engi, condi ranger, condi revenant etc.)?

I'm quoting this person from another thread. Condi builds needs the defensive stats because their nature NOW is to sustain.

It feels like the Great Condi Nerf Patch (Dec 2017) fixed a lot of the problem with condi being burst damage, which is fine, but it did not also reduce cleanse on all classes. The result was a massive nerf to all condi builds that cannot consistently reapply conditions. If condi stacks are halved, but cleanse remains the same, the result is a 50% nerf..

Was this intended? Are there any plans for non-spammy condition builds to be viable again (eg. condi engi, condi ranger, condi revenant etc.)?

I'm quoting this person from another thread. Condi builds needs the defensive stats because their nature NOW is to sustain.

They're also talking about the builds that don't instantly reapply 25 stacks right after you cleansed it

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